


The Rowntree Restraint

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: First Misses [18]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Rowntree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 22:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20217544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: Follows directly on from Q; might make a bit more sense if you’ve read that first, but does stand alone.





	The Rowntree Restraint

**Author's Note:**

> Follows directly on from Q; might make a bit more sense if you’ve read that first, but does stand alone.

Robin pulled the quad bike back into her parents’ barn, parked up and switched off the engine. The barn was dark and the house lights off. Strike clambered off the bike behind her, and she dismounted too and pulled the tarpaulin loosely back over the bike to cover it.

“Shh,” she whispered, fumbling for her phone in her bag. She pulled it out and switched its torch mode on. Strike squinted at her, caught in the beam, and she swung the light down to the ground. “Sorry.”

They crept across the yard towards the dark house. They hadn’t intended to stay quite so long in the pub, but Strike had been so delighted by the range of real ales on offer. He had had four pints - was it four? Robin wasn’t sure now - and she had had a couple of small glasses of wine and then, feeling tipsy despite the huge meal her mum had cooked them earlier and mindful of the off-road drive home, had switched to orange juice.

Strike paused at the back door and fumbled in his coat pocket. “Might have a last fag before we go in,” he whispered. Robin nodded. She unlocked the door and went into the kitchen, leaving him standing on the step, cupping his hands around a match to light his cigarette. A minute later she was back, handing him a small glass of whisky, which he accepted with surprise and delight.

“Raided the drinks cabinet,” she murmured with a wink. “Dad likes a single malt now and then.” She raised her glass to his and they chinked quietly.

Strike drew on his cigarette again and sighed, deeply content and not entirely sober. He gazed up at the sky.

“So many stars,” he murmured. “This is what the sky is like in Cornwall.”

“Mm,” Robin agreed. “London has crap sky.”

She giggled. “Well, it’s got the same sky, but you can’t see it because of all the light pollution,” she amended.

“And the pollution pollution,” Strike added.

Robin smiled up at him. “Do you ever think about leaving? Going back to Cornwall?”

Strike shrugged. “Not really,” he said. “Not much call for private detectives in the countryside, despite what TV dramas would have people believe.”

He looked down at her, softly backlit in the light from the kitchen, her hair a golden halo around her face. “Do you? You seem so at home up here. Do you miss it?”

Robin thought for a long moment. “No,” she said finally. “I do love it up here, and the accents sound like home. But it has bad memories as well as good...” Her sentence drifted to a halt.

Strike nodded, wishing he hadn’t said anything. He dropped his cigarette end onto the step and ground it out under his heel, making a mental note to tidy up the butts in the morning.

“And, you know,” Robin added as they stepped back into the kitchen. “Like you, I just want to build the agency up and keep doing what we’re doing. The only way I could move back up here is if I joined the police.” They set their glasses on the kitchen table.

“They’d have you,” Strike said, shrugging his coat off and hanging it on a peg by the back door with the other coats. “Wardle would bite your arm off if you asked for a job in his department.” He reached for her jacket as she slid it off.

Robin snorted a derisive laugh and handed her jacket over for him to hang up. She moved across to the sink to pour herself a glass of water. “I can’t imagine he would.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Strike told her. “He said last time we met for a pint that I should tell you to get in touch with him if you ever wanted a ‘proper’ job.” He scowled a little.

Robin flushed. “And why didn’t you give me this oh-so-important message?” she teased, trying to hide her fluster.

Strike hesitated. “I was afraid you’d consider it.”

Robin turned to face him, her eyes searching his. “Really?”

Strike shrugged, his eyes sliding from hers. “You’d have a career with prospects. You’d very quickly be earning twice what I can afford to pay you.”

Robin put her water down next to the sink and stepped across to him, making him look back up at her. “And I’d be ordered about and told what cases to take and how to investigate them,” she said. “What we do is more...creative. Far more interesting. And hey, I made junior partner in two years. I’d say that’s pretty good career prospects.”

Strike laughed. “That is indeed a meteoric rise,” he said, and she giggled up at him.

He grinned fondly down at her, and her heart lurched. How had it taken her so long to see how handsome he was, how attractive? It was all she could think about when she looked at him these days. Those dark eyes that seemed to see her thoughts, the curly hair that she so longed to touch, the scar on his lip that she fantasised about kissing.

His grin faded, his eyes intense as they gazed at one another, and suddenly all Robin could hear was her heart hammering in her ears. Strike stepped very slightly towards her and she found herself swaying closer. She imagined kissing him, her hands in his hair, his mouth on hers, and she was moving towards him, her hands coming up—

With volley of barks, an elderly chocolate Labrador erupted into the room. Robin jumped, startled at the loud noise in the quiet of the kitchen, and Strike stepped back.

“Rowntree!” Robin hissed swinging towards him and trying to grab his collar. “Shh!”

The dog advanced, still barking at Strike, and then abruptly stopped. He stepped forward, smelled the big stranger, and suddenly dropped his head, his tail wagging sheepishly.

“Yes, you dozy old thing, it’s the same person who was here earlier who you liked,” Robin told him. “Honestly, I swear he’s half blind as well as half deaf. Can you believe it took him this long to realise we were back? Useless guard dog these days.”

She realised she was chattering too much to cover her discomfort. Her heart was still hammering. It had really, really felt like Strike was going to kiss her.

“Robin, is that you?” her father’s voice was followed by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Strike cleared his throat a little and stepped over to the coats, fiddling about with pockets, moving his lighter from his trousers pocket to his coat. Michael Ellacott appeared in the kitchen doorway in a navy dressing gown, his hair rumpled.

“Yes, sorry, Dad,” Robin said, contrite. “We were being ever so quiet, but then Rowntree decided to forget who Cormoran was.”

Michael nodded, looking from Robin to Strike and back again.

Strike cleared his throat again. “Well, perhaps best if I get to bed, then he won’t feel the need to protect the house from me,” he said. “Night, all.”

Robin tried to catch his eye, tried to will him to stay. She longed to know if they had almost kissed or if she had imagined it. With the moment broken and her dad in the room, it seemed so unlikely suddenly. And tomorrow it would be back to business as usual.

But Strike was carefully avoiding her gaze. He shot a tight, polite smile in the direction of Robin and her father, and went into the hall. Robin heard his boots clumping along the flagstones and then starting to climb the stairs.

“Nice evening, love?” Michael filled a glass with water at the sink and drank it, eyeing his daughter fondly over the rim.

Robin nodded. “Yeah, Cormoran liked the pub. We talked about the cases, mostly.”

It was a lie. Half a lie. They had talked about the cases, but as was becoming the norm for them lately, they had talked about so much more. Strike had asked her about the local area, about her childhood, and had seemed genuinely interested in her answers. She had enjoyed telling him all about it, amusing him with her and her brothers’ antics over the years.

Michael set his glass down. “I’ll take Rowntree up with me, stop him barking again,” he said. “Come on, old chap.”

The middle-aged man and middle-aged dog climbed the creaky stairs, following in Strike’s footsteps.

Robin looked around the kitchen and sighed. She drained the dregs of her whisky, locked the back door, switched off the light and followed.


End file.
